Pending the vote on Syria in Congress, which has been delayed while Barack Obama considers other, more diplomatic options, the topic of this blog is a certain Ukrainian YouTuber known as the “real-life Barbie” or as Vice has crowned her: “Space Barbie.” Valeria Lukyanova (Space Barbie) has made somewhat of a name for herself online […]
Candice Holdsworth
Candice is the founder and editor of
Imagine Athena, an interdisciplinary online magazine dedicated to ideas, people and culture
She has a master's degree in political theory from the London School of Economics, and thus can be most commonly found reading esoteric coffees and sipping political literature. Her favourite colour is the darkness that dances at the centre of all human endeavour, and she is so witty and talented that other witty and talented people have commented on her jealously. These qualifications render her suitably empowered to engage in armchair philosophizing and political punditry. Indeed she intends to live by her pen, or in modern parlance, her keyboard.
Follow me on Twitter: @CandiceCarrie and Instagram: candicecholdsworth Email: [email protected]
Posted inNews/Politics
The boy George: He will reign but not rule
The fanfare has died down quite a bit now, but last week’s media chatter pretty revolved around the arrival of The Royal Baby aka George Alexander Louis. Right now he is completely blissfully ignorant as to the significance of his birth and royal fate. I wonder at what age he will start to realise that […]
Posted inNews/Politics
conservative with a small c and Liberal with a capital L
I recently listened to an engrossing discussion on BBC radio, featuring Douglas Murray and Peter Hitchens, about modern day conservatism as distinct from classical liberalism or libertarianism, and in contemporary Britain, Toryism. It’s usually very difficult to systematise conservatism as it generally eschews such rigidity, and true to its name seems more content to “conserve” […]
Posted inEnvironment
Fracking and Utopia
An engineer recently said to me that there’s no such thing as a perfect system. He was referring to software development, but the concept was not unfamiliar to me, as Utopia is something that political theorists have been discussing for centuries. It is always there, whether referred to implicitly or explicitly in the academic literature. […]
Posted inGeneral
The dictionary of obscure sorrows
‘‘Kenopsia n. the eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that’s usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet—a school hallway in the evening, an unlit office on a weekend, vacant fairgrounds—an emotional afterimage that makes it seem not just empty but hyper-empty, with a total population in the negative, who are so conspicuously […]
Posted inEnvironment
Johannesburg: The city that once was
About a year ago at a party, I met a well-known South African artist (he shall remain nameless) who described the Johannesburg Art Gallery as “Miss Havisham in her wedding dress”. He wasn’t saying it spitefully, he seemed to really like JAG; it was just a very honest, pithy comment. I believe the metaphor can […]
Posted inGeneral
I sometimes confuse the history of others for my own
In one form or another, I’ve had America beamed into my living room nearly every day since I was a small child. I know their history, their politics, their pop culture and their legal system (perhaps somewhat exaggerated in cheesy television dramas) better than any other country besides my own. Last year I followed the […]
Posted inTech
Who Owns the Future?
I’m currently reading a very interesting book by Jaron Lanier, one of the pioneers of virtual reality and a real Silicon Valley veteran. His 2013 book Who Owns The Future? was forwarded to me after I wrote a three-part series on gift economies here on Thought Leader. Although I have come across his work before, […]
Posted inGeneral
We are the Universe experiencing itself
“To sleep, perchance to dream … ” — Hamlet (Act III Scene 1) When the existence of the Higgs Boson particle was confirmed almost one year ago by researchers at CERN, I wrote at the time that “where my scientific knowledge plateaus, my inbuilt sense of aesthetic wonder rises exponentially”. What was so […]
Posted inGeneral
Epic failure
“OMG! EPIC!!!” For anyone who regularly frequents online spaces, this is a familiar refrain. It is the default comment for even the most pedestrian or banal of content. So much so, that the word itself has taken on the same nature of the objects or events it is so undeservedly used to describe. Type “epic” into […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Can’t tell my right from my left
I am no longer sure where I fit upon the political spectrum anymore. I wish I could be as righteously anarchic as some of my Libertarian friends, but I like the rule of law too much. I am also known to display certain hippyish tendencies that preclude the possibility of ever being seriously considered a […]
Posted inGeneral
History is a city
On a recent trip to England, while sitting on a train en route from London to the north where my mother, and hundreds of years of ancestry are, I lapsed into my usual reverie, staring out the window for the entire duration of the journey, books and laptops and other distractions soon forgotten watching the […]